Summer School

Summer School

About School

The aim of the Summer School is to encourage studies of the Russian North and Siberia.

The School consists of two stages. Stage 1 (the theoretical one) will be held at Tyumen State University and will comprise lectures and seminars of researchers from TSU, European University at Saint-Petersburg, Moscow State University and the Institute of the Problems of Northern Development (Siberian Branch of the Russian Academic Society). Moreover, participants will take an intensive and interactive course on the Russian language and cross-cultural communication (18 academic hours). The students will be introduced to basics cultural dimensions and their reflection in the Russian mindset and language in general and in national cultures and customs of Siberian residents in particular. The innovative course will be beneficial not only for advanced learners of Russian but also for beginners.

Week 2 will provide hands-on experience and will consist of excursions, field work and participants’ presentations with further discussion. Stage 2 will be held in Khanty-Mansiysk and will include tours around museum complexes, one-of-a-kind historic and natural sites, indigenous people’s settlements and nomad camps, the field station of the YSU UNESCO Department which is the only year-round operating station of ecological monitoring in West Siberia. The participants will see first-hand rites and traditional ceremonies of the North indigenous people, visit an authentic ‘chum’ (a temporary dwelling used by the nomadic reindeer herders of Siberia), learn some secrets of their national cuisine and crafts, and enjoy the unique views of the Ob’ river floodplain.

The working language of the School: English.

You might consider enrolling if you are an undergraduate or graduate student majoring or interested in history, ethnography, anthropology, geography and cultures of the Russian North and Siberia.